Danbury based Patron Highcroft Racing will make its American LeMans Series LMP1 class debut from the sixth starting spot in Saturday's Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring at Sebring (Fla.) International Raceway.

David Brabham turned a fast lap of 1:46.504 on the 3.7-mile course in Thursday's qualifying for the 57th running of the event.

Highcroft Racing is one of two teams running the newly introduced Acura ARX-02a Prototype at Sebring. Highcroft is making the jump this season from LMP2 to LMP1.

It was a memorable day for the new Acura as de Ferran Motorsports driver Scott Dixon, last year's Indy 500 winner, put the ARX-02a on the pole with a lap of 1:45.278. Dixon will share the ride Saturday with team owner Gil de Ferran and Simon Pagenaud.

Dixon beat Audi's Tom Kristensen by 0.082 seconds. Kristensen is part of an Audi lineup that is introducing its new diesel-powered R15 TDI. Peugeot's Chrisian Klien was third fastest on the day at 1:45.462. An Audi and a Peugeot will start fourth and fifth respectively followed by the Highcroft entry.

"It is great for the program that Acura is on pole position," Brabham said. "We have been working together so much on these cars that we can all share a little bit in that. From our point of view it was a bit of a messy session with traffic and we struggled a little bit with a lack a grip. The only time I was really able to push was on my last flying lap but then I ran into traffic again. We never really saw the full potential of our car today. We're still learning about our car and we had decided early on to treat qualifying as a test session and we tried a number of changes - some things did work, some things didn't - but the most important thing is we now have more knowledge for the race."

Brabham will share driving duties in the event with Norwalk native Scott Sharp and former Indianapolis 500 winner Dario Franchitti.

"The qualifying result wasn't what we hoped for but I think it has been a great day for the team," Sharp said. "We made a number of additional changes this morning, but David ran into a bunch of traffic. We made some more updates before qualifying but maybe these didn't work out but I think the engineering staff really have a handle on things. We know what is going to work and I think we are in really great shape for the race. The team has had a good strong week with the new Acura. Getting the pole makes everyone feels great but the real secret here is making sure we are still in a position to race for the win in the final hour."

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On August 18, 1995 Shawn Courchesne attended his first short track racing event, filling in on coverage for a Friday night show at Stafford Motor Speedway for the Hartford Courant. Little did he realize that night ... read more